The reason we use Statscan numbers instead of municipal or provincial counts is because Statscan's numbers are derived from a uniform methodology that applies to the entire country.
StatsCan's census numbers count students as residents of their home town.
Alberta municipal censuses count students as residents of the community where they're studying.
Thunder Bay's municipal "census" only counted voting-age people living within city limits for at least 6 months, and I don't think we've even conducted one since 2005.
First Nations censuses count people who are members of the band but not living on the reserve, and do so monthly.
StatsCans census numbers are the only numbers that give us the ability to make a reasonably fair comparison between all communities in the country. No other organization provides as much data with as uniform a method. That is why we prefer it.
StatCan estimates are more accurate in that instead of simply counting people and hoping they all respond, they look at a wide variety of factors, like employment, housing, births, deaths and immigration, on a regular basis, and make very educated guesses. However, they use a baseline based on the previous census. When the 2012 estimates are released, they'll be based on six year old data from the 2006 census. We've only been using the 2006 census as a baseline for estimates since 2010!
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Originally Posted by dennis1
They change their Metro Data in the US. The Standards for last years census are not the same as in 1990. Canada can do this. Or is Statistics Canada lazy?
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Statistics Canada actually did change the formula for CMAs this year. Their goals of accurate representations of the relationships between municipalities within our economy is a lot different from our personal desire to see the cities we like have higher numbers than the cities we don't like as much.
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